Call for Papers

While the importance of paying attention to language has been widely acknowledged by organizational scholars, studies have
primarily been concerned with how language is used in organizational contexts (i.e. through focus on discourses
occurring within the parameters of one national tongue), rather than with situations in which different languages (i.e. national
tongues) play a role in producing and shaping organizational phenomena and processes.

The fact that
organization studies took a long time to discover native or national languages as a topic of study (Tietze, 2008a) still has
consequences for how organization scholars approach them. Extant literature on languages in organizational contexts tends
to focus on the instrumental benefits of a common or shared organizational language for communication, collaboration and information
sharing. On the other hand, such instrumental views of language have been critiqued in studies showing that variations in
language competence also affect careers and mobility (Piekkari, 2008) as well as the inclusion into, or exclusion from, organizational
participation and decision-making (Śliwa & Johansson, 2010; Tietze, 2008b). As such, language does not only constitute
a communicative tool, but exercises considerable performative power (Tietze & Dick, 2009). Notions such as linguistic
capital (Bourdieu, 1991), linguistic identity (Coulthard, 2008), and linguascapes (Steyaert et al., 2011) point to the organizing
capability of language, and how language, politics and power intertwine.

The aim of this sub-theme is to enrich
and extend the debate on language and organizations by inviting conceptual and empirical contributions that consider the ways
in which language intersects with other factors to produce organizational realities. While the effects of processes such as
class, gender, nationality and race have to a larger extent been addressed in organization studies, the contribution of language(s)
to establishing subject positions in conjunction with the aforementioned processes remains underexplored.

Indicative
themes that might be explored in conceptual or empirical papers include, but are not limited to:

The possible
impacts of the introduction of corporate language policies on the hierarchization of organizational identities

The
relationship between the linguistic competence of organizational members and power relations within organizations

Multilingualism and approaches to language diversity in organizations

Effects of language on global careers
and mobility

The role of language in the formation and perpetuation of corporate elites and other dominant social
groups, and conversely language as a basis of exclusion and marginalization

The significance of intersections
of language and other organizational processes, for example, gender, ethnicity and class for organizational identities, identification
and belonging

Language as one resource among many in the arsenal of boundary spanners, bridgemakers, or compradors

Tietze, Susanne (2008b): 'The work of management academics: an English language perspective.' English
for Specific Purposes, 27, 371–386.

Martyna Śliwa is Reader in Organization Studies at Newcastle University, UK. She is interested in issues of language and Englishization
within contemporary organizations, postsocialist transition, migration and transnationalism, and intersectionality. She has
presented papers at EGOS Colloquia in Berlin (2005), Bergen (2006), Amsterdam (2008), Barcelona (2009), Lisbon (2010) and
Gothenburg (2011).

Wilhelm Barner-Rasmussen is Assistant Professor in Management and Organization at Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki, Finland. His research interests
include language, multlingualism, boundary spanners and knowledge sharing in multinational corporations. His work has been
presented at EGOS Colloquia in Barcelona (2009) and in Lisbon (2010), where he co-convened a sub-theme on 'Englishization
and Language Diversity in Contemporary Organizational Life'.

Marjana Johansson is Lecturer in Management at the University of Essex, UK. She is interested in processes of identity construction in organisations,
and is currently carrying out a research project with Martyna Śliwa which addresses the internationalisation of UK academia.
Aspects of the research include a critique of meritocracy and an intersectional approach to understanding the work experiences
of non-national academics. She has presented at EGOS Colloquia in Amsterdam (2008), Barcelona (2009), Lisbon (2010), Gothenburg
(2011) and Helsinki (2012).